Oregon Brewers Festival '15, July 22-26

It's almost here... In just 12 days, Oregon's biggest, baddest beer festival opens for its annual 5-day run of beer, music, food, fun, and sun! A whopping 90 beers will be served in the main tent and an additional 15 beers from the Netherlands and New Zealand will be served in the international tent. For more details, check out the complete news release below.

The event will kick off with a parade on Wed. July 22, leaving at
11:30am from Metalcraft Fabrication at 723 N Tillamook St.; folks who want to take part
can gather in the fenced in area on the corner and get their ID checked by the
security guard on-site starting at 11 a.m. (Minors are welcome in the parade,
but will not be allowed into the festival without a parent. Everyone with a
wristband will walk straight into the festival and not be carded at the
festival entrance.) More than 500 craft beer lovers and a small brass band will
cross the Steel Bridge over the Willamette River, joining up with another group
from Rogue Ales at NW 3rd and Davis; all groups will eventually ending
up on the grounds of the festival for opening ceremonies, which will begin
around Noon. This year's Grand Marshals are Kurt and Rob Widmer, founders of
Widmer Brothers Brewing Co., who were also part of the original Oregon Brewers
Festival committee.

In the two main tents, the Oregon Brewers Festival will serve 90
beers from 89 craft breweries from the U.S. and Canada; each brewery sends
one beer to the event (Deschutes sends two, including one
gluten-free). Another 13 brewers from New Zealand and The Netherlands
will serve 15 more beers in the International Beer Garden as part of a
cultural exchange of ideas, knowledge and great craft beer. A full
lineup of the beer is available here: http://oregonbrewfest.com/index2.php?p=beers

The Oregon Brewers Festival offers a wide variety of styles ranging
from from Belgians to braggots, pales to Pilsners, radlers to reds, and
saisons to stouts. The event also features five days of live music, food booths,
craft vendors, homebrew demonstrations and industry displays.

The Oregon Brewers Festival is not a ticketed event, and there is
no admission charge to enter the festival grounds. In order to consume
beer, the purchase of a 2015 souvenir tasting cup is required and costs
$7. Beer is purchased with wooden tokens, which cost $1 apiece. Patrons
pay four tokens for a 14-oz beer, or one token for a 3-oz taste. The
purchase of cups and tokens is made on-site, although there are a handful
of local businesses that sell them up to two weeks prior to the event,
including Rogue Ales, Green Dragon, Cascade Brewing, Raccoon Lodge & Brew
Pub, Deschutes in the Pearl and Belmont Station.

The Oregon Brewers Festival encourages responsible drinking
and urges patrons to take the Tri-Met MAX Light Rail, which has a station
just one block away from the main entrance. Attendees can also take
advantage of the Hopworks Bike Corral, where volunteers from
the #BC2Baja Bicycle Tour will watch over bikes for
free. The Crater Lake Soda Garden provides complimentary handcrafted
root beer and soda to minors and designated drivers; minors are allowed
into the event all hours when accompanied by a parent.

The Oregon Brewers Festival was founded in 1988 as an opportunity
to expose the public to microbrews at a time when the craft
brewing industry was just getting off the ground. Today, that
industry has flourished, especially in Oregon, which currently has234 brewing facilities operated by 194 brewing
companies in 72 cities across Oregon. Portland alone has 61 breweries — 91 if
you count the Portland metropolitan area. The economic impact of the festival
on the local economy is around $32.5 million annually.
For more information visit www.oregonbrewfest.com.